Twitter Brand: How Many Times Can You Say One Thing?

The biggest obstacle to a Twitter brand is lack of single-mindedness.

It is darned hard to pick one thing that best represents you when you’re creating a Twitter brand. There is a very human need to tell the world, “But I’m a tech wizard, and a knitter and I can fix anything, and my paella won a bake-off, and my kids say I’m a Mom in a million!”

Great! Admirable! On Twitter: bupkus!

Tell me what you are passionate about in relation to what you do and build your brand around that one thing.

Emulate Orville Redenbacher who made his popcorn brand famous by his touting the fluffiest and lightest popping corn in the world.

Obsessive? Yes. Singleminded? You bet. In 2006, ConAgra even brought Orville back from the dead because he was still popular more than 10 years after his death in 1995. It’s creepy to see the old guy’s head recreated in CGI but it’s also testament to the power of Orville’s brand.

Twitter brand single-mindedness is necessary because people can barely remember one thing, much less ten.

It isn’t that people’s minds are getting smaller or that memory is in short supply. Twitter single-mindedness is important because competition for mindshare is greater than ever. You will have a homerun on Twitter if people remember you at all, while they are getting to know thousands of other Twitterites.

If you try to build a reputation as a vacuum expert, soccer player, husband, dad and lint specialist, you’ve squandered your chance to differentiate yourself from all those other people fighting for attention. Pick one. Pick only one. And say it over and over.

If you throw out possible Twitter brand ideas in the comments, I’ll be happy to weigh in on how to focus your message further.

Cynthia Hartwig

PS It is a little known fact that in his last years, Orville Redenbacher wanted to write a book called The Sex Life of Popcorn. Sadly, his death in 1995 prevented him from finishing it. But he was planning on making it about one thing: he promised that “It would be all about pollen going astray.”